I have a hagwon. It is registered at the education office. This is a legal requirement. The hagwon is not a part of the hagwon association, though it was in the past. Being a member of the hagwon association is not a legal requirement.

In no manner was my school, or any person working at my school, contacted for the purpose of attending a meeting.

I have a hagwon. It is registered at the education office. This is a legal requirement. The hagwon is not a part of the hagwon association, though it was in the past. Being a member of the hagwon association is not a legal requirement.

In no manner was my school, or any person working at my school, contacted for the purpose of attending a meeting.

The cynic in me is starting to think that the whole seminar is for the hagweon association to prove that it is, in fact, constituted for the purposes of education instead of to enrich the association's members and that the proof must be provided to the P/MOE.

The fact that there was a fee to attend this thing and it was coordinated by the Hagwon Association sounds suspicious to me. If you were forced to attend on the advice of a GPOE employee and you're not sure it was legitimate you can file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission to investigate the employee. You can file your complaint online at http://www.acrc.go.kr/eng/index.do

It may have been above board but when the hagwon association organises an event and only 1 person in the office of education knows about it, that seems very strange, even if some of the speakers were from the office of education, that doesn't make it necessarily kosher.

I have a hagwon. It is registered at the education office. This is a legal requirement. The hagwon is not a part of the hagwon association, though it was in the past. Being a member of the hagwon association is not a legal requirement.

In no manner was my school, or any person working at my school, contacted for the purpose of attending a meeting.

The cynic in me is starting to think that the whole seminar is for the hagweon association to prove that it is, in fact, constituted for the purposes of education instead of to enrich the association's members and that the proof must be provided to the P/MOE.

But I'm quite cynical on occasion.

I don't think you are being cynical at all. You are probably correct to the greater extent. The primary purpose of the event definitely wasn't to raise money. Nor was it for the P/MOE to give powerpoint presentations informing teachers to make sure they are signed up for National Pension, National Health Insurance, etc. Nor for them to hand out pamphlets with a list of government agency contact numbers and procedures to go about getting these benefits. But I could be wrong, I didn't attend. Perhaps they did do all of this.

Were any officials from the offices of Pension, Health Care, or Taxes there?

The fact that there was a fee to attend this thing and it was coordinated by the Hagwon Association sounds suspicious to me. If you were forced to attend on the advice of a GPOE employee and you're not sure it was legitimate you can file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission to investigate the employee. You can file your complaint online at http://www.acrc.go.kr/eng/index.do

It may have been above board but when the hagwon association organises an event and only 1 person in the office of education knows about it, that seems very strange, even if some of the speakers were from the office of education, that doesn't make it necessarily kosher.

No doubt the meeting was above board in the legality of organizing and holding it. However, a teacher can't be legally bound to paying a fee to attend this type of event or be held legally bound to attending the event at their own expense. Now I'm not an attorney, but this is what I've been told by an attorney. No, I didn't seek legal advice in this matter, I just happen to have a friend who is an attorney in the court system here.

Sure, the Hagwon Association organizes or at least participates in the organization of an event. Someone from the education office shows up and talks. So? What is the fine or penalty for not attending this event? 3 days in jail? 500.000 won? Write 400 times: I will attend the next hagwon meeting? Have my parents sign a note saying that I was sick and couldn't attend?

I have a hagwon. It is registered at the education office. This is a legal requirement. The hagwon is not a part of the hagwon association, though it was in the past. Being a member of the hagwon association is not a legal requirement.

In no manner was my school, or any person working at my school, contacted for the purpose of attending a meeting.

This was a local meeting. Is your hogwan in the covered area?

For several years I worked at a hogwan that was not part of the local hogwan association - the owner had no interest in it - but all the teachers were always "invited" and required to attend. The list of teacher names came from the Education Office. Every teacher legally registered and only those teachers legally registered at the Education Office had to attend.

The fact that there was a fee to attend this thing and it was coordinated by the Hagwon Association sounds suspicious to me. If you were forced to attend on the advice of a GPOE employee and you're not sure it was legitimate you can file a complaint with the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission to investigate the employee. You can file your complaint online at http://www.acrc.go.kr/eng/index.do

It may have been above board but when the hagwon association organises an event and only 1 person in the office of education knows about it, that seems very strange, even if some of the speakers were from the office of education, that doesn't make it necessarily kosher.

No doubt the meeting was above board in the legality of organizing and holding it. However, a teacher can't be legally bound to paying a fee to attend this type of event or be held legally bound to attending the event at their own expense. Now I'm not an attorney, but this is what I've been told by an attorney. No, I didn't seek legal advice in this matter, I just happen to have a friend who is an attorney in the court system here.

Sure, the Hagwon Association organizes or at least participates in the organization of an event. Someone from the education office shows up and talks. So? What is the fine or penalty for not attending this event? 3 days in jail? 500.000 won? Write 400 times: I will attend the next hagwon meeting? Have my parents sign a note saying that I was sick and couldn't attend?

For teachers in my area, if you miss the meeting you have the option of either attending the next scheduled meeting in an alternate city or paying the fine. The fine was 100,000 won imposed by the local Education Office.

For teachers in my area, if you miss the meeting you have the option of either attending the next scheduled meeting in an alternate city or paying the fine. The fine was 100,000 won imposed by the local Education Office.

For several years I worked at a hogwan that was not part of the local hogwan association - the owner had no interest in it - but all the teachers were always "invited" and required to attend. The list of teacher names came from the Education Office. Every teacher legally registered and only those teachers legally registered at the Education Office had to attend.

As I've told you repeatedly, maybe this particular meeting wasn't the same as the ones you claim to know about.

Here's more information you chose to ignore or didn't know: The tickets we got from our directors did not have our names or anything about us on them. My ticket only had my hagwon's name, address, and hagwon association membership number on it. Therefore, I think it's unlikely that any real office of education kept track of our attendance.

ontheway wrote:

For teachers in my area, if you miss the meeting you have the option of either attending the next scheduled meeting in an alternate city or paying the fine. The fine was 100,000 won imposed by the local Education Office.

Wooden Nickels has information that conflicts with what you say, and he says he owns a hagwon and has spoken to a lawyer.

I maybe late to this and besides the event is done. I just remember this thread and reading about the legality of the meeting.

Some quoted Korean laws from the "ACT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF PRIVATE TEACHING INSTITUTES AND EXTRACURRICULAR LESSONS"

It seemed legit. A quirk I have found with Korean laws is to ALSO check the corresponding enforcements decree of said statutes/laws. The first time I learned of this quirk was with Certificates of Employment. All employers are mandated to provide one. It says so in the Labor Standards Act. An interesting tidbit was hidden, more just mentioned in the Enforcement Decree of LSA. That after 3 years an ex-employer did not have to provide one. Going on.

So while perusing the laws for another purpose this, something jumped out at me and reminded me of this thread.

Quote:

ENFORCEMENT DECREE OF THE ACT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF PRIVATE TEACHING INSTITUTES AND EXTRACURRICULAR LESSONS
Article 20 (Delegation and Entrustment of Powers)

.......

(3) The Superintendent of the Office of Education shall, under Article 21 (3) of the Act, entrust the affairs such as the training for founders, operators and instructors, and investigation and research related to the training referred to in Article 13 (3) of the Act to the incorporated association, the Korea Federation of Private Teaching Institutes.

That Korea Federation of Private Teaching Institutes jumped out as that sounds like the name of a hagwon association. I remembered somebody quoting laws and say no. Back and forth it went.

The KFTA is a democratic organization of teachers composed of local associations, functional organizations, and affiliated organizations.
- Local teacher associations : 16 metropolitan and provincial federations of teacher associations

In a sense the hagwon association everyone kept mentioned might be covered as part of the KFTA being under its umbrella.

Sorry, I have mainly skimmed this thread and think maybe somebody did not dig enough and missed this. Plus it might have got compounded with a classic lost in translation error.

So what do ya think of this?

Edit: I thought I would add some relevant other laws. The ones people where posting I think are dated. Back in 2011 the Korean government changed the laws mainly concerning MOE and their wanting documents.

Quote:

ACT ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF PRIVATE TEACHING INSTITUTES AND EXTRACURRICULAR LESSONS

Article 13 (Instructors, etc.)

(3) The superintendent of the competent office of education may, if necessary, establish and implement training programs training founders, administrators and instructors of private teaching institutes to improve their quality as persons in charge of social education under the conditions as determined by Presidential Decree.

[This Article Wholly Amended by Act No. 8711, Dec. 21, 2007]

Also when checking out the laws. You want to READ everything. One act might relate to another act. Like this one and with Article 13(3).

Quote:

Article 21 (Delegation and Entrustment of Authority)

(1) A part of the authority of the superintendent of the competent office of education provided for in this Act may be delegated to the head of a district office of education under the conditions determined by Presidential Decree. <Amended by Act No. 8711, Dec. 21, 2007>

(2) Deleted. <by Act No. 6392, Jan. 26, 2001>

(3) The superintendent of the competent office of education may entrust a part of the affairs on conducting training plans for founders or administrators of private teaching institutes or an operator of a teaching schools referred to in Article 13 (3) to an institution or juristic person related to private teaching institutes under the conditions as determined by Presidential Decree. <Amended by Act No. 8711, Dec. 21, 2007>

And... another little quirk when checking the laws. Do not forget the Addendas.

Skippy,
Remember that the issue was whether it was "mandatory government training" or not.

It is not. The experiences of those actually attending (myself included) proves that it wasn't.

(1) Many E-2 hagwon teachers were (a) not invited, or (b) specifically told that only "head foreign teachers" / one representative per campus had to attend. Within the circle of Gyeonggi hagwon E-2 people I know, the great majority did not attend.

(2) The hagwons all seemed to treat it as "send one representative per campus", which typically means the most senior foreign teacher. As others have posted here the past week, our names were nowhere on our registration cards. The hagwon's business-name, legal name, and owner/director were named specifically, but not ours. They have no idea that I, as a person, was there -- just that a foreign man representing "[such-and-such] institute" was there.

This means it was a Hagwon Association event, pure and simple, with no real oversight by the government. It was not a "mandatory government training".

The Hagwon Association must have waved around this empty "mandatory" warning to (a) boost its own legitimacy and (b) to let employers seemingly-legitimately claim that they do not need to pay overtime. Job-related trainings are supposed to be paid under the law, as well. My own supervisor yelled at me in quite animated terms about all this. She finally said that this "training" did not need to be paid because it was about "sexual abuse" and not related to our actual jobs, whatever that means. In fact, there was nothing really in the training about "sexual abuse", and 80-90% of it was about teaching technique.
___________________________
The point is, the training was not mandatory for all E-2-holders. The laws you cite (which have been posted here upthread several times) say nothing like that. There is no provision for punishment for individuals, but there is in a penalty for hagwons within the "points system" of the Hagwon Association. If a member-hagwon of the Association had not sent anybody, they'll likely have to pay a higher membership-fee next year.

The hagwons all seemed to treat it as "send one representative per campus", which typically means the most senior foreign teacher

Hagwons usually sent the most-senior people (in my personal and anecdotally what I saw in others), but should've sent the most-junior people.

I think this kind of training would be useful for hagwon people who'd only recently arrived. This points to one of the two problems.

The problems were:
(1) Too big. All seats in Anyang City Hall's auditorium were full. I think somebody said 800 attended. This is too many.

(2) Not relevant. 95%-99% of what was said was not useful at all to veterans, and I say above, most attendees were not new arrivals.

Both of these problems would be solved if the event were monthly. Say, a June 1st training for all E-2s who'd arrived in the country for the first time May 1st to May 31st (what would that be in Gyeonggi, 100-200 people a month? -- In other jurisdictions, it'd be even more intimate). That would keep the numbers low enough to be manageable, and might be quite relevant to a lot of them. It would also keep our the hecklers and troublemakers. Having twelve practice "go-rounds" per year would really refine their ability to put on the event. Too much of what happened in the June 2013 event was amateurish, like a production put on by mediocre high-schoolers. Best of all is this: In such a small environment of new people, it would let E-2s make instant friends and acquaintances, in the way public-school E-2s do in their training week.

Again, I actually like the idea of that kind of training, and I think it would've helped me a lot back when I first started, if done properly (as above).

After work on Friday, a group of us met out for dinner to say goodbye to [...]. Kaitie and I couldn't stay out too late as early Saturday morning we were off to a Foreign Teacher's Seminar in Anyang (about an hour away). This meeting was a mandatory function set up by the hogwans of Gyeonggido. Every foreign teacher in Gyeonggi province had to show up, sign in, and listen to some presentations regarding teaching English in Korea.

The MC of the event was a very sweet Korean guy. I felt badly for him because, as many nice people as there are here, there are definitely still some bad apples in the bunch. As he showed us some videos of traditional and beautiful areas around the country, one man shouted "We don't care" into the silent auditorium. You could feel the simultaneous intake of breath as nearly everyone turned to see who could possibly be that rude. I won't call out this gentleman (using this term loosely), however he made several more comments throughout the seminar that made myself and I know many other people there incredibly uncomfortable.

While the seminar wasn't exactly the most useful one I've been to, nor did I want to be there especially, this is something we had to do for our schools and therefore we had a responsibility to be there. Being rude or complaining about the situation does not change the fact that you are there, and it definitely will not make the day go any faster. Why not sit quietly and listen, point out spelling mistakes on the screen, or just look at your phone, which was what the majority of the crowd was doing.

[Picture of a Powerpoint Slide saying "Sit Down Please"]

[Picture of Traditional Drummers at the training, featuring three spelling mistakes of 14 words]
Caption: Yikes... "Cultural" and "Korea". Not sure if it was supposed to be "Sound & Rhythm & and Fan" or Fun either...

A few foreigners made presentations about teaching, which were entertaining, though mainly telling us things we already know. For example, teaching here is much different than teaching in western cultures. Some life changing info there thanks!

Then a cute little old Korean man named Hank came on stage and began a rather painfully slow lecture about the most common pronunciation mistakes that Korean students make and how to fix them. His speech was littered with fillers such as "you know", "okay", and the occasional "blah blah blah". While this man is incredibly intelligent in his field (and his native tongue), he was not the right choice of speaker for this event. He apparently lives in Geongju (where we went for the cherry blossom bike trip. He invited whoever wanted to to go there and he would show them around. Such a sweet little old man.

So, in the end, not the most useful nor enlightening, but it was something we had to do and we did it. Thanks again to Kaitie for keeping me company as she volunteered to go along! /// [Link]

My Comments:
--I agree that some of the attendees were immature. Making constant sacrastic comments and the occasional loud heckle does not make one look cool. The sarcastic-hecklers in the audience amongst us were something out of a mediocre bunch of middle-school students, I'm sorry to say.

--Her statements about it being "mandatory for all hagwon foreign-teachers" is obviously untrue, since most of the E-2 people in Gyeonggi were not even invited.